


More Important than War

by casuallyimagining



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Budding Love, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casuallyimagining/pseuds/casuallyimagining
Summary: "Some things are more important than wars."Leo is separated from his retainers during a battle against Hoshidan forces. When she finds him, he is in dire need of assistance. He can't die--can he? And what about after? Can they have a real relationship with a war going on?





	1. One

She dug her heels in, pushing her horse to its limits. She had to get there, had to get to him, before… She couldn’t bear to think it. War was dangerous, she knew. War was _hell_ , and there was bound to be some casualties at some point.

 _But not Leo_. She thought as her horse crested a hill. _Anyone but Leo_. She saw him below, surrounded, a shock of blonde among helmets and leather caps. The enemy army, almost thirty strong, had him completely trapped and was moving in slowly but steadily, not giving him much room to maneuver. Trees popped up and disappeared quickly, skewering the enemy as they advanced, but still they came. If she didn’t intervene soon, she feared the worst.

As her horse pounded closer to the advancing group of Vallites, she lifted her hand, yellow lightning magic bursting forward, taking out the two closest enemies. _Lance users_. She noted, casting another bolt of Thoron and carving her way through their ranks. _Someone did their_ _homework_.

She grew nearer to the fray, more Vallites fell in her wake, and she could see more of Leo. He clutched Brynhildr tightly, sending green bolts of magic from it every few seconds. His hair was disheveled, and with his horse Agnar nowhere to be seen, she assumed he had fallen from it sometime before being cornered. He had a small spatter of blood covering his face, and his armor had a red sheen to it. Some of it was the blood of the enemies who met their fate in the branches of Brinhildr’s spells. Based on how he was holding the tome to his side, though, some of the blood was undoubtedly Leo’s.

As she let another blast of lightning magic loose, she noticed just how fatigued Leo had become. His spells were getting slower and occasionally sloppy, and she could tell his hidden injuries were taking their toll. As he cast a spell in one direction, a Vallite in another would prod him with a naginata. It looked like a cruel schoolyard game. Based on the body count stacking up around Leo, it had been going on for a while before she had even crested the hill.

Her focus was forced back to the fight in front of her as her horse inelegantly dodged a slash from a naginata. She took out her attackers easily, and by the time her attention turned back to Leo, he had killed all but three Vallite soldiers. She assisted by taking out the one at his back, and a simple change of gravity thanks to Brynhildr sent the one directly in front of him into the air fifty feet and back down at peak velocity.

It was the third, however, that made her cry out. As Leo was casting the spell to change gravity on the second, the third was moving in. Immediately after the spell left Leo’s hand, the naginata buried itself in his side through his armor. He cried out in pain and shrank back, dropping Brynhildr, and the soldier continued to attack, slicing upwards. The plates in Leo’s armor popped and shattered away, leaving him exposed. Before she could even react, the soldier had his blade buried in Leo’s stomach. He didn’t have time to remove it before a bolt of lightning took him down. He lay on the ground writhing as the electricity flowed through him. She had ensured that it wouldn’t be a quick death.

Swiftly, she dismounted her horse and rushed to Leo, who had fallen to the ground, clutching at the naginata that was sticking out of him like a splinter. She knelt beside him, removing his hands from the weapon. The last thing they needed was for him to dislodge the blade and bleed out or to make the wound worse by moving it around. He whimpered in pain as she helped him readjust to be more comfortable lying on the ground.

“It’s going to be all right,” she whispered, smoothing his hair down, her eyes searching his body for any more serious injuries. For the most part, he was scratched and bruised. He had a few more serious cuts in the gaps in his armor where plates met each other, but the worst of his injuries, she had witnessed herself. The injury to his arm she had suspected earlier seemed to be just a large and painful bruise forming.

“Eliza…” Leo whispered, his hand finding its way to hers, grasping at her as if his life depended on it. “I-”

She shushed him gently, raising a hand and sending out a green bolt that exploded in the sky—the agreed upon sign of distress among the other Nohrian royals and their retainers. “You’re going to be all right. You’ll see.”

She sighed, wishing she had learned healing from one of her father’s friends when she was younger, that she had asked Elise to show her the basics when the war had started. Anything that would have made her not quite so helpless now as she awkwardly held Leo close to her, keeping steady pressure on his wounds.

 _He cares for you, you know_. Camilla’s voice echoed in her mind. The lavender-haired princess had whispered those words to her days ago, but now it felt like years.

She felt her mind wander then, as she waited with Leo for help to arrive.

_He had argued with Xander about keeping her in the army when she and the others had first arrived in Nohr, claiming she had use as a tactician. Xander had said that the royal family didn’t need any more retainers, but Leo had insisted that she could at least help him study war._

Leo groaned, shifting slightly so that he was lying more on his back than his side. She ran her thumb over his knuckles in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. She wanted to scream out, to run away and find Elise or Jakob, even Xander, and bring them back to help him. But she couldn’t bear to leave his side for even a second.

_Just a few months ago, he had opened up to her after she had found him wandering around the Astral Plane in the middle of the night. His fears of one day becoming his father, his life of living in Xander’s shadow, his loneliness. It was the first time she had seen him that close to tears._

He squeezed her hand gently, prompting her to gaze down at him. “How do you feel?” she whispered, taking her hand from his and smoothing down an errant strand of hair.

“Dizzy.” He paused to take a few shallow breaths. He was struggling to breathe; they didn’t have much time. “Cold.”

She nodded, her hand finding its way back to his. “Just hold on. Someone should be here soon.”

_She had told him everything. The wars she had fought in before this one. Her home, far from this land, and its people. Her father—her real one, not the one she had met before Naga sent them all back. Everything she had promised herself she would never reveal to anyone in this world, she had whispered to him sitting by the lakeside late one night._

“Leo!” A shriek from the top of the hill jolted her eyes upward. Two horses with blond riders thundered down the hillside towards them. Elise and Xander. _Finally_.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eliza and Leo discuss the future.

A few days passed, and slowly, Leo’s strength was returning. For two hours every day, he insisted on training; Xander had commanded he take a break from fighting any _actual_ battles for a while. And since the others were usually busy fighting the war, it fell on Eliza to train with Leo. Normally, this involved light sparring with training swords and some easy magic. However, one particularly warm and breezy day in the astral plane, Leo insisted on doing something different.

Which is how she ended up sitting on a blanket on the edge of a stream playing chess against the younger Nohrian prince. She was beating him, barely, and her advantage was slipping with every turn that passed. There was no denying that he had a terrific mind for strategy—it took everything in her to edge out even the smallest of leads. 

“You learned this from your father?” Leo questioned, moving his rook around the board. Eliza eyed his strategy carefully.

“Among other things.”

“Hm…” Leo’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the board. “You must have been a very studious child.”

She chuckled darkly as she selected a piece and moved it, capturing one of Leo’s white pieces. “It’s amazing what you can learn when you’re fighting a war.”

“I suppose so.” Silence fell between the two. Eliza didn’t particularly enjoy talking about her childhood despite Leo’s curiosity. She had thought that explaining that she couldn’t say much for the same reason Corrin couldn’t tell them whom they were actually fighting, but that only served to entice him more. But he understood the signs of a painful childhood, so he usually let the conversation drop.

“I wanted to thank you for staying behind with me these past few days. I know you would have much rather been out on the battlefield than sitting here practicing your chess skills.”

Eliza rolled her eyes. It was true that fighting alongside Xander, Corrin, and the others was much more exciting than helping Leo get his strength back, but she wasn’t opposed to spending time with Leo. In fact, she actually enjoyed it. Of all the Nohrian siblings, Leo was the least serious and the least doting. He was the perfect combination of loyalty and passion. But Eliza would never tell him that—she could only imaging how red he would turn if she did.

“Some things are more important than wars,” she replied simply, moving her knight in for checkmate. Leo had been neglecting his king’s left side for a few turns, and she had finally been able to act upon it.

“Yes… well… still.” Leo’s face had turned a slight pink. “I appreciate not being forced to recuperate alone.”

 _He cares for you, you know_. Camilla’s voice echoed through her head once again. _He just doesn’t know how to show it sometimes_.

Eliza frowned, resetting the chessboard. She was almost sure Leo would want a rematch. What Camilla had said… she had to push it out of her mind. For her own good, if not for Leo’s. Even if what Camilla had said was true, Eliza knew she almost certainly could not stay in this world. With her father gone, her mother would almost certainly need her, and her father’s position in the army would be left open. Granted, Eliza’s younger sister could fill the tactician’s spot, but she had significantly less experience than Eliza. There was no way either of them would live up to their father, but since his disappearance, one of them would have to do. And even if she could stay, she didn’t fit in. This was not her home. No, Eliza could not stay in Nohr.

“Can I ask you a question?” Leo’s voice made Eliza jump. She had almost forgotten about him. Eliza gestured for him to continue. He inhaled deeply before continuing. “Do you ever think about the future?”

“I… I mean, I guess? In what way?”

“Do you ever think about what comes after the war ends?”

“Will the war end?” Eliza questioned softly. “I thought maybe it would once, but then I found myself fighting another war.” 

“Wars can’t go on forever. The world would run out of people.”

She chuckled. “I suppose you’re right.” Eliza sighed, rolling the black king between her thumb and forefinger. “When the war ends… promise you won’t judge me too harshly?”

“Of course I won’t.”

“I want a normal life.” He smiled sympathetically at that. If anyone understood the desire to have a normal life, it was the four Nohrian royals. “I want to see the world as a tourist, not as an invading army. I want to stand in a field of flowers while the wind blows. I want to dance in the rain.” She sighed, barely whispering. “I want to be fall in love with a man who loves me for _who_ I am, not _what_ I am.”

Leo blushed slightly and turned his head away so that he was no longer looking at her. He coughed once. “I understand.”

“You think it’s stupid.”

“Of course I don't.” 

“Why not? I think it’s stupid.” She sat the king down heavily, knocking over the rest of the chess pieces. “I dream of a life I can never have.”

“Why though?” Eliza shook her head, pulling her knees up to her chest. A light breeze began to blow her hair around, covering her face. She let it go. “I mean, all those things are pretty achievable. They aren’t absurd by any means. Who says you can’t have that life?”

“Please, Leo. Just… just stop. Please.” Eliza sighed and stood, brushing herself off. “I think that’s enough for today, don’t you? The others should be getting back soon. I have reports to finish for Xander.” She turned and began to walk away, towards their camp and away from Leo and the stream. 

“Eliza, wait!” She could hear him attempting to gather the chessboard and blanket together quickly so that he could follow. “Eliza!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry if I can't update this as much as we would both like me to... I try to keep a busy schedule with school, and I'm trying to keep my Tumblr fic account fairly updated, so I don't often get a lot of time to write. But I really enjoy this multi-chaptered format, so I want to post as often as possible. I tend to get more motivated and find more time to write if I can tell that people are enjoying what I'm posting, so don't be afraid to leave a kudos or a comment, it really helps me to gauge whether or not I should continue writing. Thanks so much for reading!


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